Mora sat on his bench in silence still shaken by what he had seen, he was alone in the waiting room now that Merca had left after transporting him here.
Merca had asked Mora if he wanted to take part in the challenges which was apparently what battles he saw were, but as it turned out that was more out of curtesy then anything else, while Mora couldn't help but get excited by seeing the battles he had been shown, the idea of actually fighting, and killing other competitors shook him to his core. But when he said no to Merca, the angels face fell and when he reached up again to touch Mora's forehead the images he saw were unspeakable. Sure the blood and violence of the challenges were shocking but the images that flooded Mora's head the second time were… different. They were a threat, and when Merca pulled his hand away all Mora could do was crumple to the ground and sob.
"Are you sure you'd like to refuse?" Merca whispered
Mora still couldn't respond, but there was no need to, that was hell, that was where he'd go if he didn't fight, if he didn't win.
So now he sat, preparing for the first event.
Suddenly a window popped up in front of him, it reminded Mora of something you'd find in an rpg. Which was an impression strengthened by the text it displayed.
Select your starting ability, stats and weapon.
So this must be how the magic he had seen works, it appeared as though he would be able to gain abilities, as well as level up stats over time but for now could select some options to start off with.
Reading through the options it was hard to tell what choice would be the best, since there wasn't really a good way to tell how good the different stats and abilities compared to each other. So his only lead for making his choices was what little he knew of the first event. Merca had told him two things before losing, firstly, "Don't die." which was totally useful advice however his second parting hint of advice was the nature of the first event in the challenge. "I hope you're good at mazes." While that wasn't much to go on it did lead him to believe the best stats for this event would probably be agility, and intelligence.
So he chose thusly
'[Sprint burst], Strength burst, Mana burst
Str: 2 [+1]
Agi: 6 [+2]
Int: 7 [+1]
Sen: 5
Vit: 3 [+1]
Sword, Axe, Hammer, Knives, [Dagger]'
Sprint burst made the most sense out of the abilities, since being able to outrun the competition would be his best bet to stay alive and he still had no idea if he could even use mana for anything at this point. Seemingly his stats were based on his real abilities in real life, making the fact they were so low pretty insulting but there wasn't much he could do about that. The fact they were so low also meant his plan of just pouring stats into agility and intelligence would be a bad idea. Assuming 5 was an average stat having such a low vitality and strength would be dangerous meaning he had to put at least one into each, mean while he had no idea what "Sen" was so it was probably best to leave it alone for now seeing as it was average. Lastly the choice of dagger wasn't as analytical as everything else since three out of five of his choices weren't available to him… Just then a new window appeared in front of his stats.
'Timer until phase one
60
Prepare to enter The Maze.
Objective:
Reach the safe zone in the center alive.'
It was finally time for Mora to prove his existence. To finally be someone.
_____
Mora
Class: none
Stats:
Str: 3
Agi: 8
Int: 8
Sen: 5
Vit: 4
Abilities:
Sprint burst
Passives:
Challenger, Adaptation, Enduring ambition, Aspect of the merchant